Angels in Hell
by Aithilin
Summary: Dean discovers that there are angels in Hell.


**Title:** Angels in Hell  
><strong>Author:<strong> Aithilin  
><strong>Rating:<strong> G-ish?  
><strong>Genre:<strong> General, AU  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> AU as of Season 4; characters from later seasons  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Dean, Alastair, Balthazar, Lucifer/Castiel  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 2002  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> All recognizable characters were created by, and belong to, Kripke and company. Likenesses belong to respective actors.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Dean discovers that there are angels in Hell.

**Author's Note:** This is a very straightforward piece that deviates from canon. It was stewed on for most of the day, but isn't the full piece I had intended. If it goes well, or if the idea keeps bugging me, I may rewrite it anyway, or write up the full story I had in mind.

* * *

><p>There were angels in Hell.<p>

They were a well kept secret, skulking in the depths of the Pit, where few demons ever went. What Dean had learned in his forty years— ten of which had granted him enough movement to explore and learn and revel in just what sort of turmoil could be created— was that demons stayed away from the depths. Populations crowded around the escape routes, fighting to slip through a crack, or swarm if a door was opened. The edges of Hell were a teeming mass of lesser and greater creatures, bent on escape and revenge.

Dean had wanted out, but he wanted to leave with something that could help. He wanted knowledge of the enemy. He was confident that he could resist the changes— that he was still affected by the sights and sounds of pain. But it was easy to slip unnoticed into the depths to take a look around.

And, sometimes, he was dragged down by Alastair.

He was told about Lucifer, and the Fallen. Like all the others, he heard the stories and the rumours that somewhere, deep in the Pit, deeper than any demon would go, there was a cage. He had heard that it was an empty abyss, or a garden. Some little slice of wrath or love Lucifer had carved out for himself.

It was untouchable.

But while the bigwigs were kicking around earth, and while Azazel was gone, Alastair had taken his favourite student on a field trip to a barren, empty portion of Hell. It was a place where the fires had died, the implements of torture were gone, and there was nothing.

Just nothing. For long, long stretches. It was cold, empty, and even with the demon dragging him along, Dean felt lost, alone, and forgotten.

But Alastair talked. He explained the barriers— ones you could feel in the distance— as the bars to a cage. The heat of Hell was gone, but this was the slow, cold burn of winter frost. It seeped rather than scorched. It sunk through Dean's perception of flesh and bone and chilled the blackening core of him. And as they moved through the waste, to where it seemed like frost covered everything, the cold burned at Dean's humanity.

The mind was a creative thing— it was why humans were such excellent students in Alastair's opinion; his students were fresh forces of malicious creativity just waiting to be released— and it shaped Hell around Dean. In the borders and heated edges, he saw the red rocks and flames, the hooks and racks, and every physical manifestation of the metaphysical torture. Now, here, his mind conjured the sight of the wasteland as a frozen stone, blue and cracked with the force of the frost digging into it. Icy claws that chipped away at everything in the slow, seeping pace that scared him. He wanted to be back in the heat.

In the far distance, where the crumbling stone cracked with just the force of a footstep, he thought he saw an aurora: a flicker of ever-changing bright colours across the horizon.

"Those are the real monsters, boy."

Alastair had stopped, but Dean pressed on. There was something ahead of him, and it was important. Something inside him recoiled at the sight of the lights, but the rest of him, the human in him, pushed forward. For the first time in forty years, Dean could feel a faint swell of hope at those lights. They weren't fire.

He walked for days, for years, until the sight of the lights hurt his eyes. He could hear a voice over the distance, once, and followed it further. He had to stop when the light grew to be too much for him— too bright, too pure. Whatever it was, it had sent the skittish black core of him deeper into hiding, and drew out that sense of hope that was built into his human soul (as tattered as it was). So he stopped when he could see shapes and hear voices.

It was a barrier.

One shape, agitated, smarmy, was pressed against the barrier from the outside— Dean's side— and his mind filled in what he was seeing with what he could perceive.

They were the angels. One outside the barrier, one in. But there was something wrong.

"You don't want to get closer, boy." Alastair was beside him again. He didn't know how, or why, or when, but he had long since stopped asking questions of his teacher. At least, questions that came outright challenged Alastair's authority.

"Who are they?"

"It's very sweet, really. The one outside is a faithful companion who followed his friend into damnation."

"And inside?" The light was bright, and Dean didn't really want to consider the options about this one. He had heard the rumours of Lucifer, but it was another thing to get close enough to _see_ him.

"The one inside there is a little fighter. The sacrifice Heaven made."

"Lucifer."

A smile split Alastair's face then. Dean hated those smiles. This one he knew: a condescending look from a long-suffering teacher with a particularly dense student. "Lucifer's companion. Azazel knew for certain who it was, but all I gathered was that it was an angel destined to rebel during some foretold apocalyptic nonsense, and Heaven cut its losses early."

Dean felt something stir in him at the thought. Time was fluid; he learned that here, in the depths. They showed him this fact through scrying and witches— the demons who loaned power to humans to see these possible futures and pasts. He remembered one such session, on the verge of breaking him, when they showed an angel coming to rescue him. It was followed by the far more likely scenario that he was released on the world as a demon. A great asset to Hell was a demon who understood human hunters. Dean stepped off the rack with that future in mind— if he turned, if he took that power and escaped, he could find Sammy, look out for him. Keep the other demons away. He realized then that he had changed something vital, he sensed it when he picked up the knife for the first time and peeled away flesh from his first victim. Something had changed and no angel was coming for him.

But the angel in the Cage, this companion… Dean had to see it. He remembered what the witches had shown him. He'd recognize his angel in those visions.

He was moving closer without realizing that he had taken the steps. Alastair was by his side, still.

He could hear the angels bickering.

"Insane, I think." His teacher spoke with the lazy speculation of someone who had seen these sights before. "Eons locked away, with only a single companion for company. Things happen, I expect."

Dean ignored him as best he could, watching the pulse of energy. What he thought was a pure, simple light was wrong. It wasn't pure. In the depths of the creature in the Cage, he saw the swirls of madness and rage— they burned low, not the cool malice that shaped the world around him, but a slow burn that could easily explode into white hot fury given the right push. The creature was angry, and frustrated, but eager. Dean could sense that it was looking forward to something. Pieces of it slipped through the bars to touch the angel beyond the barrier. A hand, a wing, shapes forming as Dean struggled to understand what he was seeing.

"I'm not leaving you, Cassie. You don't get to make me."

"I need you to. Just long enough to find the seals."

"You need me."

"I have company."

"What? Luci?" The one not confined to the Cage reminded Dean of a smart-ass British man he met it a bar once. Scruffed and blond, critical of anyone about to ruin his fun with some sort of responsibility. "Boy can barely remember what day it is, Castiel. Sort of a bad one for conversation."

"We rarely talk, Balthazar."

"So I hear."

Dean wasn't sure what he was hearing. Castiel— the name was familiar. Alastair had stood well back now, but he pressed forward. "Hey."

Both creatures turned to him. He suddenly felt very much like he should be slinking back to a nice, warm rack about now. He could fasten his own bonds.

The one outside, Balthazar, moved before Dean could retreat. "About time you showed up, ducky."

"Ducky?"

"Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting?" A hand, searing something, pulled Dean towards the Cage. He wondered, if he was still flesh and bone, if it would have left a mark. "This the bloke?"

Castiel was quiet a moment, studying Dean with the same contemplation a cat studies a particularly interesting bug. "It's him. Dean Winchester is the Righteous Man now."

Dean found himself pushed up to the bars, and he pushed on them in wonder. He didn't know where his mind was drawing from when he created these images of angelic humans for him to see, but Castiel had the bluest eyes Dean could ever remember seeing. There was something wrong, but he just had to fall into those eyes.

"Dean, you are going to listen very carefully."

A nod and the hunter started to remember himself— a soldier, these were orders. This was the same tone John took when he needed to do something.

"Balthazar is going to take you home. Back to earth."

"Why?"

"You need to let me out."

"But," Something was very wrong, but Dean could swear that he recognized Castiel. He was a friend, not a threat; "Doesn't that let Lucifer out?"

"You need me, Dean. When you get back, there are going to be angels and demons trying to start something that shouldn't happen. You need me, and Balthazar, to help you stop it."

That didn't address the question he was trying to keep at the front of his mind. But Dean found that it was getting harder and harder to just refuse. He _knew_ with every fibre of his soul that Castiel shouldn't be in the Cage. They were friends. Brothers. "What do I do?"

"Track down Lilith. Kill her. Balthazar will help you."

There was a lie hidden in here somewhere, but Dean couldn't think of it. There was a time when he would have questioned this creature— maybe threatened him. But standing here, staring at something that could tear him apart enough so that Alastair himself couldn't put him together… Dean didn't want to argue. Maybe later.

"You just need to kill Lilith, Dean. Remember only that."

"I have questions—"

"No you don't." That was Balthazar, already pulling at Dean. He could feel the angel gripping something, nearly crushing the little black core in his hand as he pulled them both up. "Time to go home and see that baby brother, right?"

"Sammy…"

"That's the one."

Dean's mind supplied the sight of the wings beating the frozen air until it was the hot air of the borders. They tore through masses of demons crowded around the exits. But Dean looked back. In the Cage, he could see the brightest light coming forward— the source of the aurora earlier. It didn't dim despite the distance. He saw it engulf the smaller form of Castiel, and for a moment, Dean thought the angel was gone.

In his nightmares and dreams, when he woke up screaming and sweating, searching for a drink to take the edge off his memories, Dean could still see that light pulling Castiel into it. His mind never really supplied a visual approximation for the sight— no way to really relate to it in human terms. But now, with whiskey burning its way through his gullet, he could almost supply an image.

He'd never tell Balthazar what he saw, or what he thought he saw, but his mind occasionally supplied the idea that Castiel had simply been pulled into an embrace.


End file.
